Originally published January 19 2006
Australian researcher invents device to improve detection of stroke risks
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Michael ORourke, a senior researcher at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney, has developed an electronic wrist device that will measure aortic pressure, which O'Rourke believes will better predict patients' risks of heart attack and stroke.
DOCTORS may one day measure blood pressure using an electronic wrist device to better predict a patients risk of heart attacks and strokes, if an Australian cardiologists theory is right.
Michael ORourke, a senior researcher at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney, believes blood pressure generated in the large arteries is the most precise measurement for stroke and heart attack risk.
But conventional blood pressure measuring devices sphygmomanometers which use an inflated cuff around a patients upper arm do not give doctors an accurate assessment of the aortic pressure, near the heart.
Prof ORourke has developed an electronic wrist device, known as the SphygmoCor system, which measures a patients aortic pressure.
That allows doctors to more accurately assess a persons risk of heart attack and stroke, and to determine whether anti-hypertensive drugs are having the desired effect, he says.
Doctors have long known that blood pressure differs between the arm and the heart but until the SphygmoCor device they had no non-invasive way to measure blood pressure in the major arteries.
The University of NSW researcher said by reducing aortic blood pressure, through exercise, diet and drugs such as calcium channel blockers, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers, the likelihood of developing small blood vessel damage in the brain and kidneys should also be reduced.
In an article in the journal Hypertension, Prof ORourke said disease in the small blood vessels of the brain and kidneys, associated with dementia, small strokes and kidney failure, could be explained by age-related stiffening of the large arteries, including the aorta.
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